Cab Owners Face Fines in New Plan

A major change appeared in the offing for the city’s taxicab industry when the Transportation Commission voted Thursday to recommend stiff fines for Los Angeles cab owners when drivers are discourteous, overcharge passengers or otherwise provide bad service.

The system of fines, which would apply to drivers of the city’s 1,158 taxis and their operating companies, is part of a new taxicab plan expected to come to a City Council vote in the next few weeks.

If approved, the Los Angeles plan is believed to be the first in the country that would fine owner groups, officials say, rather than just the offending drivers. Los Angeles has five franchise companies, one driver-owned cooperative and two independent driver associations whose operating contracts with the city expire in August.

Under the new plan, each could pay fines of up to $100,000 a year from “penalty points” accumulated by their drivers.

The tough new approach is the latest chapter in an ongoing struggle by the city to control the force of 3,000 to 4,000 drivers--who tend to be entrepreneurial and little inclined to take orders--and the various operating entities, which never seemed to get along with each other.

“I just want some peace,” Commission President Nathan L. Chroman said after a two-hour commission meeting on the subject.

Remarkably, the system of fines and other elements of the plan were worked out by the taxicab operators themselves, despite their traditional rancor, with the help of the mayor’s office. The unusual accord was spurred by a Department of Transportation recommendation late last year that none of the contracts be renewed and the whole system be thrown open to outside bidders.

Many Don’t Speak English

Transportation staffers were frustrated, said Thomas Conner, principal transportation engineer, because companies and the independent driver associations too often could not account for their drivers, most of whom lease their cars and pay about $65 per shift. More than half, other staffers said, are immigrants, many of whom speak little English and have difficulty adapting to American customs.

“We wanted to see stronger management,” Conner said. But the cab operators paid little heed, and spent more time accusing the department of treating their individual operations less fairly than their competitors, other staffers said.

“There’s been all this talk about ‘level playing fields’ or parity,” transportation engineer David Leatherman said, “so we said, OK, we’ll make it level. We’ll just bulldoze it and start over.”

“We were in a state of shock,” recalled Bob Martin, president of the Independent Taxi Owners’ Assn.

So with the help of Mayor Tom Bradley’s transportation aide William Bicker, the operators worked to come up with a new agreement so they could stay in business. The agreement was worked out over the last six months, although interviews with several lease drivers this week indicated they knew nothing about the plan.

“We came as one, for the first time in history,” said Ben Filossof, president of United Independent Taxi Drivers.

One Deal for All

“We sort of demanded it,” Bicker said. “They were asking for the mayor’s assistance, and I just said I wasn’t going to deal with these different groups, (that) we’ll help you as one group.”

“It was a very difficult process,” said Gorman Gilbert, a spokesman for both Los Angeles Taxi and United Checker, two franchise companies that operate 350 taxis, “and in the final version there were things we didn’t like. It was pretty much a compromise.”

Said Filossof: “Reluctantly, we agreed because they say, if you don’t agree you’ll be out of business.”

Under the plan, drivers also could be fined for the first time in Los Angeles, as they are in New York. In the past, the Department of Transportation only suspended drivers for varied periods of time, depending on the severity of the offense. Now, drivers would have the option of suspension or paying $30 to $500 per violation. Each of those violations also become “penalty points” against the driver’s company, building toward its group fine.

Tests of Taxi Service

The plan also provides for a clarification of driver rules, requires periodic tests by the city of how long operators take to respond to passenger calls and sets up a special fund created from the fines to pay for improved driver training.

Critics of the new plan included David Shapiro, a leader of independent drivers who broke with his association in denouncing the fine system as “Draconian.” He charged that it unfairly asks good drivers in the associations to pay for bad ones. “All of us would suffer for the acts of a few,” he said.